


Spot Everlasting

by LonelyThursday



Series: Newsies Everlasting [1]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bittersweet, F/M, Family, Immortality, M/M, Minor Character Death, inspired by tuck everlasting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24257857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyThursday/pseuds/LonelyThursday
Summary: Immortality is not all it's cracked up to be, and Spot has to watch the heavy hands of time wear down on his friends. Only he and his family are immune.(NOT a Tuck Everlasting AU, but it was the inspiration)
Relationships: Albert DaSilva/Racetrack Higgins, Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber, Past Relationships - Relationship, Romeo/Specs (Newsies), Spot Conlon/Elmer (Newsies)
Series: Newsies Everlasting [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815937
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Spot Everlasting

**Author's Note:**

> I watched half of the Tuck Everlasting movie on Disney+, wrote this, and then watched the second half. I didn't see Mile's story until after I wrote this so I definitely saw where it was going before it go there. Immortality sucks :/

The taxi driver helps Spot get his bags from the trunk before getting back in his cab and driving away. Given the late hour, and given that the street is mostly lined with residential houses, there’s little chance of anyone else being out right now, leaving Spot and his bags alone on the sidewalk. 

Spot stares at the house in front of him. The outside looks almost exactly the same as it did the last time he was here, though there _is_ a new coat of paint on the door and window frames. The neighborhood, too, is mostly untouched, almost giving him the illusion that he hasn’t been gone at all… 

Almost

But the house next door has a new addition built on, and the house across the street painted their fence, all the cars are modern, and there’s a new coat of paint on the door. 

It’s been twenty years since Spot’s been here, even if he hasn’t aged a day in all that time. 

With one final sigh, Spot grabs his bags - every worldly possession he wants to keep from the last twenty years packed easily into two suitcases and a duffle - and ascends the steps to the door. He pulls out the key he found in his P.O. box in New York two weeks prior - in an envelope with a return address of “Tuck”, an ongoing joke in his family since the novel was published back in the seventies - and fits it easily in the lock. 

The inside of the house is different. Of course it is, while Spot hasn’t been back in twenty years, he knows that at least one member of his family’s been residing in the house the whole time, they’re bound to update things. 

The foyer’s been completely remodeled, and the faint light coming in through the windows allow him to see that the living room down the hall has been remodeled too. Likely the entire first floor has been updated, but it’s too late to check now. All Spot wants to do is get to bed, he’ll see everything in the morning. 

Spot doesn’t bother with the lights, he just trusts that the stairs haven’t changed, and makes his way up in the dark. The second floor provides more of a challenge as there are no windows in the hall, and all the bedroom doors are closed. But even without light, it’s simple enough to turn right from the stairs and continue straight until the end of the hall. 

His bedroom is largely unchanged - gray walls, a twin bed in one corner, a desk in another, a bookcase full of classics along the wall, and no decorations other than a photo of his family from the last time they were all together hanging above his desk, and one newspaper cut out from the Newsboy Strike - though there are two notes on his desk that read:

_‘Spot,_

_Re-did the electrical. Added two more outlets_

_-S’_

And

_‘Hope you don’t mind but I did some cleaning, aired the room out, put fresh sheets on the bed, made sure the lights worked_

_-Crutchie <3’_

Followed by yesterday’s date.

As grateful as he is to not have to sleep on dusty sheets, Spot wonders how Crutchie knew he was coming back. Spot hadn’t told him.

In fact, Spot hasn’t spoken to anyone in his family for twelve years. 

Spot sighs, he’s too tired now to think about it. He’ll deal with how Crutchie knew, and exactly how many family members are home tomorrow. For now, it’s time for sleep. 

**^(^.^)^**

Spot is woken up much earlier than he would like by the sound of a door slamming nearby, followed by footsteps thundering down the stairs. He blinks at the ceiling for a few moments before finally registering that he’s in his room in his family’s house. 

Another door slams - the front door this time - and Spot groans at the realization that Crutchie isn’t his only sibling to be home already. Based on where he thinks the first door slam came from, he’d guess it’s Race, but it could be Smalls - Jack and Crutchie are unlikely suspects as their rooms are on the third floor, Romeo is unlikely because his room is on the first floor, and Medda would never run down the stairs. 

With one final groan, Spot rolls out of bed. He might as well get up now while there’s one less person in the house. One less person to bother him over breakfast. One less person to ask him why he hasn’t contacted anyone in twelve years while he’s trying to eat. 

It’s not that he expects anyone to be mad per se, they’ve all had times where they want to be alone for a while, but no one’s ever been completely AWOL for more than a decade at a time. 

Ok, so maybe they’ll be a little mad. 

He hadn’t meant to be gone for so long - he’d only intended to be AWOL for five years, tops - but then he’d met Elmer. 

He’d promised himself he’d never fall in love. Not after Jack with Katherine, the turn of the century news reporter, or Romeo with Specs, who got drafted in WWII, or Race with Albert…

That one had been especially hard on the family, and Spot probably took it the worst, after Race of course. 

Every time is hard. Every time someone falls in love, everyone gets attached, they get their hopes up, and then something happens. Katherine and Jack’s daughter died from TB, then Katherine died from influenza, Specs died in WWII, Albert died from AIDS. Anytime his family gets close to someone, they end up dying young, and his family takes the loss hard, every time. 

When Spot first met Elmer, he’d been three years out from when he’d last seen his family. He thought it was going to be just a fling, or a summer romance, so he’d told Elmer that he didn’t have any family. The fling lasted longer than he thought, so he extended his leave - it’s not like he’d given his family an exact date for when he’d be back. The fling lasted a year, and then two, and then Elmer was proposing, and then they were getting married, and then they were getting a house, and a dog, and they were talking about adopting kids…

Spot was in love, and seven years had passed without him paying too much mind - after all, how much does time _really_ matter when you’re immortal?

A lot, if you’re in love with a mortal. 

Elmer was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. He died five months later, all the while thinking Spot didn’t have any family. 

Spot had taken another year to get his and Elmer’s affairs in order, but once their dog died, he knew it was time to go home.

He doesn’t run into anyone on his way down the stairs, but he can hear someone in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Spot,” Crutchie greets casually as Spot enters the kitchen, as if Spot _hadn’t_ been gone for twelve years.

“Morning,” Spot says, gratefully taking the mug of coffee Crutchie hands him. After watching Crutchie gracefully move around the kitchen for a minute, Spot finally realizes something. “You got a prosthetic.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in a comfortable silence until someone else comes down the stairs.

“G’morning, Spot, Crutch,” Smalls greets, taking a seat next to Spot and laying her head on the table.

Breakfast is quiet. In fact, the whole day is pretty quiet. Race - who had been the one to wake Spot up in the morning - returned home a few hours later, Medda enters the house with two large suitcases a little bit before dinner, no one ever asks what Spot had been doing while he was gone. They know he’ll tell them when he’s ready.

It’s good to be home, Spot thinks as he heads for bed at the end of the day.

His years with Elmer might as well have been a fever dream - a beautiful, wonderful fever dream - but the dream is over, and his fever gone. This is Spots life: his family, this house, an eternity to live.

It had been such a nice dream, though.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the kind of Fic that I don't really like, yet I somehow wrote it anyway


End file.
